Office of the State Treasurer

NEWS RELEASE

TRENTON
-- Taxation Division Acting Director Dr. Carol O’Cleireacain,
and Acting Deputy Director Maureen Adams announced today that a Toms
River businessman was sentenced to State prison after pleading guilty
to criminal violations of state cigarette tax law.

Richard Carroll was sentenced last Friday by Superior Court Judge
James N. Citta to five years in State Prison and ordered to pay $12,343
plus penalty and interest as restitution for Sales and Use Tax. The
State was represented by Assistant Prosecutor John J. Foti of the Ocean
County Prosecutor’s Office.

In October, 2005, a grand jury in Ocean County handed up a four-count
indictment against Carroll, 48, of Brick Twp., N.J., charging him with
selling unstamped cigarettes in violation of the Cigarette Tax Act,
a crime of the fourth degree. Carroll was also charged with filing
false or fraudulent Sales & Use Tax returns and failure to pay
or turn over Sales & Use Tax between January 2001 and December
2004; and failure to maintain records as required with the intent to
evade tax, all crimes of the third degree.

Over a period of nine months, the Division of Taxation’s Office
of Criminal Investigation and the Dover Township Police conducted a
joint investigation at Towne Stationery, 27 Washington St., Toms River,
which resulted in the seizure of 47 cartons of untaxed cigarettes,
173 cigars for which there was no record of payment of the State’s
Tobacco Products Tax, and $1,221.00 in cash.. The investigation was
opened after Dover Township Police received numerous complaints that
Carroll was selling cigarettes to students of Toms River South High
School. Carroll pled guilty in municipal court to possession on two
occasions in 2002.

“The sentencing of Richard Carroll should put everyone on notice
that we take our cigarette tax laws seriously and will actively prosecute
violators who try to avoid their obligations to the State,” O’Cleireacain
said.

New Jersey has worked in coordination with local law enforcement agencies
to pursue vendors that attempt to sell cigarettes illegally and has launched
operations to seize the contraband. During the last fiscal year, the
Division of Taxation seized 72,838 cartons of untaxed cigarettes with
a retail value of $4.5 million and initiated prosecution of 113 cases
of cigarette tax law violations.

Anyone
with information concerning untaxed, smuggled, or counterfeit cigarettes
or tobacco products is urged to contact the Division of Taxation’s
Tobacco Interdiction Program (TIP) Hotline at 609-291-7153.